Congress Gifts Taxpayers More Debt

Ahead of the Christmas holiday, Congress gave taxpayers the gift of a 4,155-page, pork-laden $1.7 trillion spending bill. It will add to the ballooning $31.4 trillion national debt and hasten the country's lurch toward a fiscal and monetary crisis.

The U.S. debt to GDP ratio of 120% already stands at its highest level since the end of World War II. If GDP turns negative again in 2023, as many economists predict, Uncle Sam's debt predicament would become even more dire – especially if borrowing costs continue to rise.

Interest on the national debt will cost the government $475 billion this year, a significant jump above the $357 billion initially projected by the White House.

In the years to come, interest payments alone could cost trillions of dollars per year.

According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, interest on the debt will account for nearly half of all federal tax revenue 30 years from now – unless the current fiscal trajectory changes.

But more spending and more borrowing remains the path of least political resistance in Washington. The $1.7 trillion spending bill was rammed through Congress with the help of Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Fellow Kentuckian Rand Paul blasted the spending spree as an “abomination.” He cited nearly $500 billion in wasteful spending, including “a steroid-induced hamster fight club, a study to see if kids love their pets, and a study of the romantic patterns of parrots.”

Senator Paul was joined by fiscal conservatives and former President Donald Trump in blasting McConnell for his support of the omnibus bill.

Republicans will re-take control of the House of Representatives next year, but they will only have a slim majority. The Senate, meanwhile, will remain under Democrat control – with only handful Republicans in the minority willing to put up a fight on spending and borrowing.

Big spenders in Washington know that under our fiat monetary system, a default can always be averted through the central bank's unlimited ability to create new currency and purchase government bonds.

“There's no reason for us to default because we can always print more money, so I think the bigger risk is high levels of inflation,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told the Washington Examiner.

Regardless of the Federal Reserve's tough talk on inflation, it will ultimately have no choice but to facilitate expansionary fiscal policy.

The Fed may now be approaching the upper limit of how much it can raise interest rates given the protests from Washington and Wall Street.

Markets are pricing in a strong chance that central bankers will reverse course at some point next year and begin cutting rates again. Weakness in the U.S. dollar and strength in precious metals markets in recent weeks suggest that monetary policy is indeed headed toward loosening.

More spending and more debt mean more currency creation. It doesn't bode well for holders of dollar-denominated debt instruments. But it does bode well for holders of gold, silver, and other hard assets.

Thank you for referencing that article Diana in Wisconsin. Please note that the following critique is directed at the article and not at you.

"Congress Gifts Taxpayers More Debt"

FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument

Pelosi probably cannot justify most of her unaccountable, unconstitutional omnibus spending bill under Congress's constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“If the tax be not proposed for the common defence, or general welfare, but for other objects, wholly extraneous, (as for instance, for propagating Mahometanism among the Turks, or giving aids and subsidies to a foreign nation, to build palaces for its kings, or erect monuments to its heroes,) it would be wholly indefensible upon constitutional principles [emphases added].” — Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 2 (1833).

After all, Congress's very few constitutionally enumerated duties aside, it doesn't takes a 4,155-page spending bill to run the US Mail Service, one of the few powers that Congress actually has to justify peacetime federal spending.

"Article I, Section 8, Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;"
"From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]." —United States v. Butler, 1936.

If this were a better world, Pelosi and lawmakers who voted for her unconstitutional omnibus bill would be removed from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment for open rebellion against the federal government's constitutionally limited powers imo.

"14th Amendment, Section 3: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof [emphases added]. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."
“Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves [emphasis added]. It seems to be the law of our general nature.” - Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787)

ALL the states desperately need to effectively "secede" from the unconstitutionally big federal government by repealing the 16th (direct taxes) and 17th (popular voting for federal senators) Amendments.

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